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Jaime Fuller

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As Hillary Clinton mulls over the prospect of running for president in 2016, a couple of television networks have apparently decided that there's ratings gold in the former First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State. So, NBC is planning a miniseries on Clinton's life, and CNN is going to produce a documentary about her. One way to interpret their decisions is that Clinton is one of the key political figures of our time and a subject of enormous and ongoing fascination. Particularly if she does run, the networks will garner attention for almost any Clinton-related project. Another way to interpret it is that the liberal media is engaged in a conspiracy to get Clinton elected to the White House. You can guess which one the Republican National Committee favors, and they aren't going to take it lying down. Party chair Reince Priebus has written a sternly worded letter to each network, saying, "many are astounded at your actions, which appear to be a major network's thinly-veiled attempt at...

Since the 1960s, political scientists and pollsters have used a measure called the "feeling thermometer" to gauge how respondents feel about politicians, organizations, and groups of their fellow citizens. It's a way to get a general sentiment—do you feel warm or cool toward this person?—that fits on a convenient 100-point scale, which makes analysis tidy, even if it has little relationship to the way we actually think about political figures. If your feeling toward President Obama is a 72, and your feeling toward Vice President Biden is a 71, does that mean anything? Not really. If you didn't know about feeling thermometers, you might have been a bit puzzled upon seeing headlines today reading, " Poll: Christie, Clinton 'Hottest' Politicians ," or " Christie, Clinton Top 'Hot Politician' List ," or " The 'Hottest Politicians' In the Country? Christie and Clinton ." Perhaps the "Whaaaa?" response was just what the headline writers were looking for, but it did seem that the articles...

If you're a regular reader of conservative blogs, you may have gotten an appeal in the last few days to make a donation to help Caleb Howe, a contributor to the popular blog RedState.com. Howe, who is married with two children, is suffering from liver failure but has no health insurance to pay for his treatment. His page on GoFundMe has logged over $27,000 in donations (the original goal was $25,000), many of which came from those alerted to his situation in a post on DailyKos.com. There are precious few Americans who, like the audience members at a Republican debate last year, would shout "Yes!" to the question of whether we should just let people die if they don't have insurance and can't pay for life-saving care. Unfortunately, most of the millions of Americans who lack insurance don't have friends with well-read blogs who can mount fundraising campaigns on their behalf when they get sick. When they are confronted with an accident or serious illness, they either get care that they'...

It's hard enough fighting a war against the president of the United States, with his bully pulpit and the resources of the executive branch at his disposal. But how can you prevail over him when all your time is spent battling your own comrades? This is the dilemma the Republican party confronts. It's happening everywhere. Mitch McConnell, who could plausibly claim to have done more to undermine Barack Obama than anyone else in the country, now faces a Tea Party primary challenge in his re-election race. Yesterday the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee lit into his party's leadership after the Speaker pulled a bill funding transportation and housing from the floor, probably because they didn't have the votes to pass it. Two likely 2016 presidential candidates, Senator Rand Paul and Governor Chris Christie, are in a public battle of insults that has all the dignity and gravitas of a grade-school playground slap-fight. Heroes of the right like Ted Cruz pour contempt...

When a reporter sits down with Mitt Romney four years from now to see how the former presidential candidate remembers the biggest loss of his political career, which Mitt will he be? It's something that comes to mind after reading The New Republic 's interview with Senator John McCain, a wide-ranging conversation that proves the much-loved maverick of campaigns past wasn't a figment of our imagination, but merely on sabbatical. In fact, post-2008 McCain coverage exists in a constant state of wonder at the senator's undulating maverickosity , a defining quality bestowed upon the politician by his "ex-girlfriend, the Washington press corps ." McCain and Romney have been among the most exasperatingly chameleon campaigners of recent memory. The prehistory of their flirtation with the presidency is dominated by practical governance that left them well-liked by their respective constituencies. Once they catapulted to bigger stages, they each had their charms: McCain his growly charisma,...